CONSTANCE WU

You're never going to please everyone, and if you do, there's something wrong.

I was emotional. I wanted to be taken seriously. I was pretty emo. I was reciting Shakespeare monologues when I was 10. I still know the whole 'To be, or not to be...' monologue, because I knew it when I was 10.

Authentic programming that shows the outside world garners authentic interest.

I feel like I could carry a movie or a show, and I'll mess up here and there, and I'll learn from those things.

I'm always hungry for the next thing. I'm never resting on my laurels.

It's my privilege to be able to play somebody not myself. I'm an actor who creates characters based in voice, movement, emotional quality, speech.

My parents did not pay a cent for my education; they didn't give me a car or furniture - I did that 100% on my own. I had to pay back a lot.

People are embracing the thing that made them different growing up instead of letting that thing elicit shame.

People's passion and desire for authenticity is strong.

When I was a teenager, I worked at the Gap for a summer folding shirts. That was pretty mindless and soul-sucking.

All the networks have always been willing to have ethnic people as the third or fourth lead or the best friend to the white person. But to actually let a black family or an Asian family carry a show, that's something where there hasn't really been a precedent set in terms of a real financial gain.

I do think there are some actors that can get away with trying to be funny, and they're still funny because they're just likeable, and you want to see them. Me, though, when you see me trying to be funny, it's like the worst thing in the world. It's needy, it's cloying, it's manipulative - it's bad.

I don't aspire to just play things that are like me. Whether the accent is Taiwanese or British or Canadian - that is the very craft in which I was trained. It is my absolute privilege and honor to do that.

I'm constantly paranoid that I'll be unemployed for the rest of my life... and have to go back folding shirts at the Gap, which you know... you gotta do what you gotta do.

If the writing is good, then the writing is already funny. All you have to do is make this funny writing true to the very deepest of your heart, and the fact that you are capable of making this true will be hysterical.

Specificity is what makes good storytelling, and good storytelling is what makes money, and making money is then what encourages new producers to invest in different stories about Asians.

The more you know about somebody's back story, the deeper you can delve into that well, and the more your comedic choices resonate full-body instead of just being quick, quippy one-liners that are just like a bunch of people trying to be clever. Because after a while, cleverness is just really obnoxious!

Usually, I'll be auditioning for the third lead, and there will be Latina actresses, Indian actresses, African American actresses because it will be like, 'Let's check off this box. We have our lead white girl, and we need an ethnic slot.'

Working on 'Fresh Off the Boat' has been really enlightening to me because it's made me actually think about the roles that Asians and Asian-American women have played in media. Not because I didn't think it was important before, but because before, I was really focused on just paying my rent.

I think half or almost all of the pain in the world … is people not feeling seen. It’s like Mr. Rogers, my hero, says: “Love is the root of everything … love or the lack of it.”

I'm not a naturally social-media inclined person. I still prefer phone calls to texts/emails. I... hate texts.

I'm okay with not having a super-secure lifestyle because if you're doing what you like, you don't need stuff to fill any empty holes.

I wish reporters were more in tune to the difference between the Asian experience and the Asian-American experience. I think often they lump the two together and think that when I talk about Asian-American narratives that they can cite 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' or 'Mulan' as proof of concept when it's a different experience.

In terms of pure acting, my role model has always been Philip Seymour Hoffman; I really always loved what he did. I love what Mark Ruffalo does. When I was younger, I liked Cate Blanchett a lot. These are all actors who are given stories and allowed to carry the whole story.

Being an actor, in and of itself, is just hard. You have to just do it for its own sake.